


Songs of me and mine

by JaqofSpades



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: 54 prompts in 54 days, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 12:06:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2191182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaqofSpades/pseuds/JaqofSpades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The history-singers could muck up the politics and battles and other shit as much as they liked.  But if they were going to sing about her personal life? She owes it to Duncan and Monroe to make sure they get it right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Songs of me and mine

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 54 prompts in 54 days challenge on LiveJournal. To the prompt: legend. Could we maybe PRETEND its 500 words?

When the Bard clears her throat, Charlie can't help the way her gnarled fingers clutch convulsively around the glass of whiskey. It's been ten years since she made it this far north, and she can't quite remember how the local legends went – whether they'd been the good guys, or the bad guys, or something in between. 

It's the Plains Nation, so it doesn't start with them, at least. They have their own songs up here – sung or spoken, this is how history lives now - and pride swells in the crowd as the singer warbles about proud Duncan Page, the most unbending, inflexible, unbreakable clan chief there ever was. Victimised as a young woman, vicious in her triumph over the Wilkes scum. 

“And then,' the woman holds the note, and the crowd leans closer. “She took on the Monroe Republic. And won.”

Not the end of the story, though. Not even the beginning.

“She'd kept 'em at bay for years, even allied up once or twice, but then the General's karma caught him tight. His tinpot Republic came tumbling down, the Patriots seemed here to stay, and Monroe, that old soldier, we thought had had his day,” the bard massacred her rhymes. “But that sly old fox, he went straight to ground. And stayed that way, I'll hear you say, 'til Duncan did hit town.”

There's a chorus of hoots and hollers that suggests this crowd knows exactly where – it's New Vegas after all, where Jimmy King carved himself an empire on blood and bruises, before he was dragged back into being General Monroe.

“That's right folks. Right here it was – the fights, bare knuckles, in that tent just over there. And Duncan took him straight to bed, she liked the blood, you see. But he can't have been that good, because she let him go, and next time we saw him, he had a girl in tow.”

Charlie's mouth twitches as she waits for her favourite part of the song. She had it tattooed on her back, in the end, to Duncan's constant displeasure.

“Monroe's bitch, they called her, with her smile of midday sun. But Matheson blood ran in her veins, so out comes her gun. 'Put it down!' Monroe commands, then 'Charlie, please!' he begs. But a Matheson does as a Matheson will, and the Bitch just stared our Duncan down.

The crowd hoots and hollers, because they all know where this is going. 

“Duncan stared back, and those there that day, they swear the air went out. Finally, the girl cracked a smile and licked her lips – the name's Charlie, she said, and zap. Duncan Page fell in love, and Charlie Matheson loved her back.”

As if it had been that easy, Charlie winces. As if Bass hadn't found them together, and his face hadn't yelled every last feeling they'd never been able to admit to, and Charlie hadn't pushed Duncan away to run after him, Monroe's Bitch indeed.

“We could be queens, she told that girl, stay a while and rest. But a Matheson needs a war to fight, and old Monroe was sly – he stole his Bitch right from Duncan's bed, and for Willoughby they did ride.”

The bard's voice drops then, and the chattering drops away. The songs hurt more than written history ever did.

“Before he went, Monroe had begged for half a hundred men. Duncan said no – she needed them more – her clan to protect. But the next day dawned, and the Patriots came and the Warclan couldn't stand. Duncan was dead, New Vegas gone, before the real war even began.”

“Eight long years, the rebels fought, Charlie Matheson at their head. Plainsmen, Texans, Old Republic too, together they shed their blood, and when the war was done, we knew that the States United must stand.”

“A President we elected, Monroe's Bitch our common choice. Then our clan came home, our tents returned, New Vegas sprang back to life. And Duncan Page, we did find – a prisoner all that time.”

Fucking Mexico, Charlie thinks. Their big fat payoff for not taking up arms against the Patriots – the custody of clan chief Duncan Page, who'd been raiding across their borders for more than a decade. Not that the bard knew that – not that history ever could. Mexico was an ally now, too important to hate.

(Those old scores lived on only in her head.) 

“President Matheson came here to ask how her lover had survived. 'Thinking of you, every night,' Duncan swore, and their love it did revive. Two long years, and the Bitch was ours, and old Monroe came too. The Nano knows what they did in bed, but the Clan they did renew.”

And dammit. Now her eyes really ARE leaking. So much happiness, just leapfrogged over like that. So many years of having each others backs, and tasting each other's bodies, and love, so, so much love. But this was the Plains Nation, and talk like that was considered weak, and besides, there was no point trying to combat the tangled folk tales with something as mundane as the truth.

Until they try to tell her where Bass is buried. Her dry cackle echoes through the room, making the woman stop short.

“Excuse me?”

“Monroe is buried in Texas, sweetheart. Next to the first General Matheson – together in life, together in death,” she forces from her throat before the memories pull her under.

She'd taken Bass back to Willoughby, when he got sick. Leaving Duncan had been hard, but the Clan needed its chief, and Bass had wanted to see the Willoughby grandkids one last time. She and Duncan had borne seven children between them – _fuck_ fifteen - and God knows each of those had done their level best to repopulate the battle-scarred west. It had been hard to let their youngest head back to Texas, but Tash Page had settled herself on long, tall Seb Matheson, and that was the end of that.

(They'd learnt their lesson when Connor had run off with Miles and Rachel's eldest daughter. The intervention hadn't gone well.)

She and Bass had taken to wandering out to the bluff over the creek every sunset when he finally got round to asking. “Think there's room for two more here?”

Charlie had just smiled, not bothering to wipe away her tears. She wasn't ready, didn't know she could ever be ready – but that hadn't mattered when Miles and Rachel had succumbed to flu three years previous, either. Her parents were long in the ground, and the roughcut double headstone couldn't give her the forgiveness Rachel never had, or the simple admission Bass so desperately wanted from Miles.

But they were buried in a beautiful place, a gentle stroll from the house that most of the Willoughby Mathesons still called home. And even if the story of Bass and Miles was just a legend to them – or was it a cautionary tale? - they knew enough to at least pretend they understood when Bass asked to interred next to his best friend.

“And you'll come too, baby? You'll be next to me?” he asked, minutes before he went, and it was the 'baby' that sent her cascading into tears. They'd been lovers most of her adult life, she'd borne his children and her hair was starting to grey, and still, _still_ she was his baby.

“Yes, love. Always,” she had murmured, and brought their foreheads together, their lips, breathing in his last breath, sobbing out his final sigh.

She'd stayed in Willoughby for a while after Bass had passed, drifting outside every day to pour whiskey on their graves. Sometimes, she'd slept out there, spent the night toasting the sodden old bastards. But word got out that she was in town, and she ended up back in Austin for a spell, advising the Rangers on how to settle their spat with the Mexicans before it escalated to all out war. 

She drifted back to Duncan, after, and they curled up with their grief and loss and told their own tales of Bass until they couldn't look at each other anymore. No one tells you how to go on living, after you make history. No one tells you what to do when your life just feels done, and all that's left is the long wait to die.

So she travels, and drinks, and listens to the bards embellish song after song of the great bogeymen, Matheson and Monroe. Mostly, she holds her tongue, but sometimes, she finds herself explaining, telling them how it really went.

“And who the hell are you to be telling us he didn't die here? Fancy yourself an expert without even a song to show for it?” the young woman sniffed through her punctured pride.

But Charlie had survived the Blackout. Brought down two governments. Commanded armies. She'd be damned if she'd let the vagaries of oral traditional fuck around with her memories. It shouldn't matter, it was just songs in a bar on the fringe of civilisation, but … soon she'd be gone, and her version of the past would be lost.

And maybe she'd enjoy teaching this bitch a lesson or two, her mean streak adds. She slams the glass back down on the dirty bar and pushes herself off the stool, wobbling over to the younger woman. 

“Might be your history, kid. But it was my llfe. Come find me when you want some new songs to sing,” she snaps, and drops a gold coin into the hat, her profile unmistakeable on the reverse. 

Charlotte Matheson Page Monroe, first president of the New United North American States, it reads. Hyperbole, really, since they hadn't been all that united, and still had half the country to go. But … she'd done her bit, Charlie reckons. Fifty-some years of doing her bit, and the history-singers could muck up the politics and battles and the other shit as much as they liked. But if they were going to sing about her personal life? She owes it to Duncan and Monroe to make sure they get it right.

(She's already decided their epitaph will be 'they fucked like bunnies and loved the fight'.)


End file.
